Inherited Traits III
by chezchuckles
Summary: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. -Anais Nin. Castle and Beckett have their first date. Set early season four. Might need to read the first two in this series.
1. Chapter 1

**Inherited Traits 3**

* * *

 **for Esther and Jill and Alex and everyone at Castle Fic Con**

xxx

 _Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. -Anais Nin_

xxx

Kate Beckett smoothed down her hair, studying herself in the mirror. And then she changed her mind entirely, plucking the pins and letting it fall once more. Her heart double-thumped at the image she made, the one overlaid in her mind's eye with the daydreaming she'd been doing all afternoon, his fingers in her hair and it tumbling down her shoulders and his mouth taking hers.

She let out a breath, unashamed to admit the whole thing was scary. Could be the PTSD she was facing, but every time she pictured his face above her, all the rest of it roared through her head and blotted out the better parts. Pain, panic, suffocation - and his eyes, already rich with grief, asking her to stay.

She swallowed hard.

It was a date. But not 'only' a date, and they both knew that. She wasn't ready, and they probably both knew that too, but things had spiraled out of her control today. That slow revelation, dawning like sunlight across her skin - blood and bloodlines, DNA and chosen love.

He was a man who had chosen, and he had never backed down from that choice. His daughter. Alexis.

Kate smoothed the black sheath of her dress. Her palms were damp with sweat, and she knew the nerves wouldn't be going away anytime soon.

But whatever she was, whatever she'd done or would have to do, the thing she knew for certain - Castle was here.

And their story was already being written.

xxx

When the knock came at her door, she was waiting. She walked quickly, unlocked the door, slid back the chain, flipped the dead bolt - and he was smirking on the other side. Lips twitching until he got a good look at her.

What was the phrase? His eyes fell out of his head.

Though not before caressing every inch of her body.

Up and down, and back up again so that their gazes locked and all she read was over-awed respect. The smirk for her obsessive security routine had disappeared, and though she caught traces of his excitement, there was none of the charismatic scoundrel about him.

Only appreciation. For her as a woman, for her standing before him. For her.

They were both still unspoken, him just outside her door while somehow she couldn't move out of the way.

"Hi," he said, the first to find his words. "You look beautiful."

She felt warmth like an algae bloom in her chest. She knew her face was inscrutable (she had spent a long time staring in her mirror, making certain of that), so she smiled. "Thank you. And this is very handsome," she murmured in response, letting her own look linger, the sharp and simple cut of his jacket and his hands in his pockets-

Oh. Really? His response to her had been that instant?

She smiled, power rolling through her in a wave. "I'm ready. Shall we?"

He seemed momentarily defeated, and she realized he must have wanted her to invite him inside while she was 'still getting ready.' Tricks most women played to gain the upper hand, make their date wait - but not Beckett. She didn't need tricks. She had his hands in his pockets and his eyes still unable to stray far from her legs.

She shut the door behind her, locking it, pushed her keys into her clutch. He reached out and gently tugged the small black velvet bag from her fingers, slid the purse into his outer jacket pocket.

And now her hands were free, unencumbered, (it was only her keys and her phone, ID and a credit card hidden inside the phone case), but when he wrapped his hand around hers, the power shifted, teetering.

His palms were warm. "Forgive me," he said with a smile she'd never seen on him before. Reluctant, braced, embarrassed? "I'm more than a little nervous."

 _Excited._

"Me too," she admitted, pressing her lips together at the admission. He had leaned forward to push the call button for the elevator and they stood side by side, waiting for it. "And thrilled."

"Yeah." He looked even more embarrassed somehow. The elevator was slow in coming. "Someone must have gotten on after me," he said, an inane statement that nevertheless made her smile. He caught her at it and huffed, running a hand through his hair only to jerk to a stop, scowling. "And now you've made me mess up my hair. Took an hour to get it right."

She laughed, light and nearly breathless with the butterflies that seemed to have abandoned her stomach and lined her lungs instead. He spent an hour on his hair - for a date with her.

She squeezed his hand, carefully shifting until her fingers pressed between his. He accepted by spreading his own fingers, interdigitating. The width of his fingers between hers made her heart thump and falter so that she felt the rush of blood in the thin skin between her knuckles.

The elevator arrived. She stepped on quickly, with relief, and Castle came after her, caught by her hand into bumping her shoulder and hip, their clasp skirting his inner thigh in a way that made them both freeze. Castle laughed first, his head bowing towards her, and she had the irrational thought _skip this, go back to the apartment._

"It's okay," she said into their laughter. The elevator was descending rapidly, or maybe that was her heart flipping in her chest. "Not like I've been unaware."

His head jerked up, his gaze sober, piercing.

For the truth.

She stalled, reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, and when his eyes followed her movement with such abject yearning, she found herself touching him instead. The back of her hand to his cheek, her fingers smoothing behind his ear.

His breath strangled in his throat, a sound that made her body pitch towards his.

But the elevator doors opened.

He caught her roving hand, opened her fingers and kissed her palm.

The doors closed again. He hadn't stopped looking at her. She hadn't told him _I remember everything._ She didn't know what she remembered, she'd had trouble sifting reality from the pain-induced kaleidoscope. She didn't know, but she was aware.

Completely aware.

The doors opened again and this time Castle turned, releasing one of her hands to keep the other, drawing her out of the elevator after him.

Completely aware.

xxx

Rick Castle was in trouble.

A simple black dress should not be this appealing. He shouldn't long to brush his fingers across the detail on the strap at her shoulder; he shouldn't have to shove his hands in his pockets to hide his response. He shouldn't keep finding himself flustered and tongue-tied on the most important night of his life.

He was better than this.

Maybe he wasn't.

She did, however, seem to like him in awe of her. He could've told her that had been going on since day one. Wasn't it his love of her that she didn't like, or didn't want to admit to, and so she kept shying away when it cropped up? Dating was fine but forever was not?

He didn't like being so bitter either. Angry. He'd assumed he had let that go when she'd chased him down at his book signing and had an honest conversation on the swings, the toe of her boot dragging in the dirt. He had assumed he would forgive her anything, but perhaps he just couldn't forget.

She was aware, indeed.

He'd been waiting for this night - not just since a sunny day on a child's playground - but since the first time he'd seen her, striding up flashing her badge, and then later walking away after an arrest with that extra sway to her hips that said she knew exactly her effect on him.

But it was only tonight when he slid into the backseat of the cab with her, their knees touching, that he realized that _he_ was having an effect on _her_.

It was a revelation.

He tested it out by leaning forward to give the driver the address and allowing his jacket to open and his rib to connect with knee. Her legs were crossed, he was leaning a little much, but she went very still. And subtly, her knee pushed up into him.

When he sank back to the seat, settling in, he didn't claim that knee with his hand like he wanted to, he instead rested his hand on his own thigh, palm up, and wriggled his fingers.

He wanted her to come to him. He wanted it to be her choice.

He needed proof of her.

She unfolded her hands and slid one into his, their palms kissing. Her smile was faint, and her eyes scanned the landscape as the taxi angled through traffic. "Where are we going?" she murmured. "I didn't recognize the address."

"Dinner," he said, grinning when she rolled her eyes. There was Beckett again, and if some of the awkwardness and nerves fizzled out, the familiarity didn't lessen the erotic tension. She was the cat in this game, and he was either the mouse or the lion. Hard to know. "No reservations to be had. But. Called your old friend, Madison, and begged her for a table."

Her face blanched. "Madison."

"She was excited. She promised to leave us alone."

"And spy on us from the hostess's station," she muttered, another eye roll. He had a feeling the eye roll was a self-defense tactic, a way to diffuse tension inside her. He liked knowing that. She huffed. "Maddie will never let me hear the end of it."

"I promise to behave like a perfect gentleman," he said.

She scowled. "Don't do _that_. Makes the whole date a complete waste."

He gaped, and she flushed bright pink in her cheeks, her neck. She pushed their clasped hands into his stomach, a light punch, and he played up his surprise into shock, crowding her.

"A _waste_. Kate Beckett. Why I never."

"You never waste a chance?" she parried, eyebrow lifting, giving as good as she'd gotten.

But he gentled, pressing the back of her hand to his chest. "Wasted plenty. Too many moments. I won't any longer."

Instead of blushing, instead of averting her eyes once more and changing the subject, she leaned in and lightly touched her lips to his. Chaste with a hint of promise. Explosive somehow. "I won't either, Rick."

It took an extreme effort of will not to molest her in the back of the cab.

But he did chase after her mouth, take a kiss more insistent than hers had been. _Insist things from me._ He wanted to sear into her every promise, every agony he'd spent over her during the summer when she'd been out of his reach, but instead he only kissed her.

It was a kiss they'd had before, but unlike any other. She was touching his neck with her fingers, his ear, and then her lips parted and it was fuller, richer than he'd dreamed. It was the taste of wine on her tongue (had she been just as nervous as him?) and the spice of mint, it was heat and her aggression, her _want_ , and the too-close press of their bodies.

She smiled in the middle of the best part and their mouths broke, brushing lips, a startling clash of teeth that made her laugh. He hadn't known she could laugh that way. He hadn't known he could be destroyed and remade in a moment just from the sound of her laughter after his kiss.

His kiss.

"That will do," she murmured at his mouth. Her nose grazed his. He felt her lashes and her hair, and his heart racing in his chest. "Already not a waste."

"Have I redeemed myself?" He was pleased to note his words didn't sound like the dumbfounded idiot he felt inside, groveling for her.

She made no response, and his question had been rhetorical (he so liked the sound of his own voice, and he knew that, and he'd wanted to hear himself after her). She sank back against the seat but she kept close, her shoulder and ribs against his chest and side, their arms twined as well as their fingers.

And then he laid their joined hands on her knee, feeling lucky, feeling like the choice had already been made.

At that, she angled her knees into him and kissed his neck, and he now he knew he was never going to survive her.

But.

He was never going to wonder either.

xxx


	2. Chapter 2

**Inherited Traits III**

* * *

Stepping out of the cab was like moving from one world to another, disorienting and surreal. He reached back to hand her out and she put one foot to the curb, her leg severely gorgeous, breath-taking, thought-ending. When she emerged to stand with him, he had lost all sense of time and space.

She smiled, her face turned up to the steel and neon facade of Q3, and something amused passed over her lips. "Maddie said it was in homage to P3."

He blinked. "P - What?"

Kate brushed her hand across his bicep, the material of his jacket crunching (loudly, it seemed, too loudly, why was his jacket starched?). She smoothed his lapel. "No, it's nothing. The club in a tv show we liked when we were in high school. Witches." She wrinkled her nose and passed him.

Castle hurried to hold the door for her, subtly trying to gauge her mood, how he was doing here.

She was inscrutable. He found himself challenged by her, wanting to take it up a notch, wanting to prove himself. But his words wouldn't come; he couldn't think of a single clever thing to talk about.

He hurried into the restaurant after her (he kept getting left behind). He laid his hand on her lower back as he stepped around to the hostess station.

She shivered, at least there was that; at least he had the ability to make her shiver.

He smiled at the hostess, pleased. "Two for Castle, reservations were last minute."

"Oh, yes. Ms. Queller said you were coming. Right this way." The hostess turned from the chrome and wood station, menus cradled against her body, her pony tail flipping. Castle glanced back to Kate, to share the incongruity of the swinging blonde pony tail, but she was reaching out to take his hand.

He was surprised, but he took it, their fingers lacing immediately. Like that was a thing for them now.

It gave him a little thrill, a crackle of energy.

They followed after the woman as she threaded through packed tables and lively groups. The bar was at the far wall, bottles in beautiful bright colors, the pendant lights throwing out neon blues and yellows. The hostess stopped at a table near the opposite wall, far enough from the bar that there was a strange oasis of quiet in the midst of the revelry.

Castle pulled out Beckett's chair. She gave him a strange look but sat down, an elegant move, the tilt of her neck under the lights making his guts clench. He couldn't help leaning down and brushing a kiss to the slope of her exposed shoulder, and then he found his own seat. When he lifted his head, he found her cheeks flushed.

But she didn't look daunted. She had the grace to hold his gaze.

The hostess cleared her throat, placed menus strategically. "Your waiter is Ramon. Can I start you on something from the bar?"

Kate demurred, touching her fingertips to the rim of her glass. "Not right now. But I'll look at the wine list."

Castle nodded agreement (though she hardly needed his approval) then glanced to the hostess. "Scotch on the rocks."

The woman left, Kate pulled the wine list towards her, tilting her head to study it just as she would a new piece of evidence. Castle was suddenly aware of being nervous. He wondered if he should have offered a wine suggestion, if he should have waited to drink with dinner like she would be. They always did this, went their own ways. In sync but definitely independent people.

"What will you have?" he asked, unable to hold it back.

She lifted her head. "House white, I think, because I'm ordering fish. I've been here a few times, and the mahi-mahi in zesty basil butter - it's so _very_ good." She flushed again, and he wondered if she was just as nervous, if his lack of cogent conversation was making her voluble. She wrinkled her nose, flicked her fingers at him. "I'm sure you could come up with better words for it."

"At this moment. Probably not."

She cast him a side-eyed look, and he let out a breath, determined to come clean.

"You have me at something of a disadvantage. My words have left me." After the cab ride, after the way she had turned into his body and her knees had pressed into his thigh. She was watching him now, studying him, and he gave her a crooked smile in return. "Charming has left me. I'm still back in that cab, feeling your lips on mine."

Those lips curled. "That's charming enough for me."

He let out a little breath of pleased surprise. "Well, good. Though it might be the best I offer for the whole rest of the night."

Even as he said it, he wished he wasn't, but she just shook her head, and leaned in, and caught his hand in hers, squeezing his fingers. "Just us, Castle. You and me. Every week in the precinct, out in the field, digging through garbage cans and rifling through a victim's pockets. Doing that conjoined twin thing, bouncing case theory around. It's just us."

"Yeah, you and me." He really liked _just us._ He grinned. "At least Madison isn't hanging around."

She laughed, pressed a finger to her lips as if unable to keep a secret. "Well. She poked her head out and waved like an idiot when we sat down."

He grunted, glanced over his shoulder. Madison had long disappeared, perhaps back into the kitchen, though he knew she worked the bar and the hostess station in equal measure. When he turned back around, Kate was laughing at him a little.

But the atmosphere was both intimate and foreign, and she was wearing this black sheath dress that made her legs impossible and her collarbones like marble, and he was finding himself running perpetually at a loss.

"Thought making out in the cab would have helped, Castle."

The way she so casually mentioned _making out_ hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. He had to rub his hand over his mouth to close it, and he shook his head like dog, struggling to come back from that image. "Helped. Yeah. Definitely. For the time it took to get here." If he sounded indignant, it was only because he was desperately trying to keep up his side of the conversation.

She only smiled. He heard her shoe drop under the table and he tilted his head to look, but before he could find her shoe to give it back, her toes were inching up his shin.

It wasn't erotic. It was - surprising.

And then she curled her toes around to his calf and hooked there, catching him. Smiling. Coy.

How in the world did she have so much confidence?

And then her foot slid into his sock and caressed his ankle and it was very much erotic, entirely erotic, oh God, she wanted to kill him, didn't she?

xxx

He wasn't _cute_.

He wasn't _sweet._

She used to think both of those applied to him, because he had chosen his daughter, he had never let Alexis believe anything else. But at this moment, oh no, Rick Castle was not at all sweet or cute. He was predatory, and intense, and she had his full and blazing attention.

She had only done it to herself. It was her own fault, teasing him in the cab and under the table.

Okay, _be honest_. Touching him in the car, her mouth against his, her knees pressed to his hard thigh, her lips brushing his neck - she hadn't been teasing. She'd been unable to help herself, memories of those kisses stolen inside a hotel lobby, and she'd wanted them again. To settle her nerves maybe. To have all their firsts out of the way so she could relax.

She was picking at her fish, waiting for the next thing he did. Madison had come around to their table just once, hugged Kate around the neck, disappeared. She'd sent a complimentary bottle of white to the table, definitely more than just the house wine, and now Castle had finished off two tumblers plus two glasses, and she'd had the rest, and she was beginning to think they were slightly tipsy.

Only slightly.

It was just the way he looked at her, cataloging her every small gesture, staring when she laughed, studying when she put a bite in her mouth. She had long ago stopped poking the bear, but he continued to reach for her, reacting to the least little thing.

He liked to touch. How could she have forgotten? It was a large oversight. Her foot under the table had declared open season, and he was using it to his distinct advantage.

His fingers stroked hers on top of the table. Over and over while he talked, his eyes warm and pleased. The deadly combination of his voice, the tenor of sex in it, combined with that touch, again and again, rhythmic, knowing-

The knuckles of her first two fingers were numb and over-raw from the sensation. It was setting up a clutch deep in her stomach that had her unable to swallow another bite.

She dropped her fork, glanced to the open floor of the restaurant, seeking distraction even as his fingers played with hers. He was finishing his own fish - he'd taken her lead ordering - and yet he continued to talk, making her laugh when she least wanted to, telling stories about sneaking around behind Gates's back when Kate had been recovering from a gunshot wound.

"Esposito has mad skills," Castle praised. "He dodged ole Rusty Gates and-"

"Rusty," she snorted, her head jerking back to him. He was glowing with recollection. "Castle."

"Iron Gates is better, yeah, but at the time, she was saying the same old same old. We were all frustrated." Some of the glow dimmed, but he didn't let his smile drop. He simply pressed on. "After Espo sneaked the folder to the dead drop, I would pick it up and meet Ryan at a 'body' and we'd hash out our next move."

And yet all they had found had been dead ends and mysteriously-set fires. She had somehow forgotten, in her frustration, that Rick Castle had spent his summer doing the only thing he knew to do for her. She wouldn't call, she couldn't, and he couldn't reach her any other way.

It made her sad. And with the wild party going on at the bar and the bitter couple just to their right, the world was discordant.

His fingers slid away from hers. He seemed to sense that her euphoria had plunged. "Dessert?" he murmured.

Oh God. "I want to get out of here," she said quietly.

Castle's face shuttered; he dropped his gaze to the table. "Yes, of course. Long day. Work tomorrow. I-"

"No, not an excuse to cut this short," she murmured, realizing her mistake. His misconception of her natural reservation. She leaned forward to hook her fingers in his, purposefully caressed his thumb with her own in reminder. "I just don't want to do this here. Any more, Rick, and I'm not sure either of us will be able to walk out with our dignity intact."

His eyes creased; he lifted his head and grinned at her. "You might be right. And I might need to sit here a moment. Have another glass of wine?"

She laughed but shook her head, pressed her hand to the top of her glass when he lifted the bottle. "Oh no. Very bad idea."

"Or very good idea."

"No need, Rick." She let the rest go unsaid, what he could count on tonight, and she sat back, releasing his fingers. He seemed flustered, turned on, confused; he must have no idea about her sometimes.

She kind of liked it when he wasn't so confident, liked especially him trying to impress her with all of his best stories, best behavior, best lines - and then how it degenerated into their usual. She liked hearing him brag about having her back despite her being incommunicado all summer; she liked that he could laugh about those empty months.

But she _had_ made him wonder.

And it was time to put a stop to that. It was time he had a partner whom he could depend on. Who never made him doubt _what they were_.

xxx


	3. Chapter 3

**Inherited Traits 3**

* * *

xxx

She was bringing him home.

She wasn't sure she had meant to do that when the night had started, but by the time dessert was finished, she was offering him coffee at her place.

And he was laughing at her for being cliche. Or transparent. One of the two. She didn't care, because this was Castle - this was _Castle_ \- and it couldn't possibly make him think less of her. Not after everything. She knew better than that, and so she could smile with him.

He held her hand as they walked the block, searching for an unoccupied cab, and she liked the easy, natural rhythm they had. It was only their usual. They were just walking down the sidewalk talking in low voices about anything and nothing, when what she really wanted was to get somewhere private and start unbuttoning his shirt.

She wanted to put her mouth against his sternal notch, feel the swallow of his throat against her forehead as he tried to hold himself together.

"Thank you," he said suddenly. His hand squeezed around hers. They were still meandering in the direction of her apartment, though the blocks stretched out far and long. No cab in sight. "For not saying anything to Alexis, not tipping your hand and making her wonder."

"I wouldn't," she promised, squeezing in return. Her lust dialed back, simmering rather than boiling over, the introduction of his daughter's parentage causing a buzz of curiosity to travel up her spine. "But I do wonder if you won't have to, someday. If she figures it out herself, or some kind-hearted person points it out, it might get ugly."

"Do you think it will?" he asked, a whine cropping up in his voice. He cleared his throat as if to get rid of it, ambling at her side so that their shoulders bumped. "Won't my love for her trump all that?"

"In the end," she sighed, thinking about herself now. About them. It _had_ gotten ugly. But in the end-

"I chose her, regardless. Just as any man does. That's the folly in the system. A man gets to abandon his kid and pretend like she doesn't exist, like it never happened, while the woman is stuck."

"That doesn't sound very flattering to anyone, Castle."

He grunted, glanced at her. But he took the rebuke for what it was. And then his fingers laced with hers. "I'm angry."

"For her?"

"At her?" He scowled at himself and glanced down the sidewalk, his eyes far from hers now, looking into some future she didn't have the vision for. "Mad at her that she'd be upset when I'm the one who loves her. Mad at Meredith for sleeping with her director to get a better role, and then abandoning Broadway entirely because it was too hard."

"Live theatre was too hard for her?"

"Or motherhood," he muttered. His face colored suddenly and now he was looking at her, seeing her. "I'm sorry. That's not fair to you, talking about Meredith and all this."

"I wanted to know," she assured him. "And it keeps my hands off you in public, so it's working out in my favor."

He laughed, a startled thing, and his resultant grin spread his lips and made his eyes crease, like happiness folded him up. Origami joy. He leaned in and caught the corner of her mouth for a kiss that was surprisingly heated. She caught the side of his neck and held him to her, angled for something better.

Wetter.

He groaned. Her tongue played with his, their steps faltering. Maybe not even Meredith's affair and Alexis's eventual discovery could keep her hands off him. Maybe the whole world and fate and the stars were conspiring to draw her to him, magnetism, gravity.

She wanted him with a ferocity that made her teeth hurt and her toes cramp in her shoes. Not having him now would be painful, and yet the idea of waking up to him tomorrow scared her with its dark unknown.

"Castle," she whispered against his mouth.

"Where are all the damn cabs," he groaned.

"Castle, tomorrow morning-"

"Work in the morning," he husked, gripping her hard and separating their mouths. "You're right. I apologize. I'll-"

"Not that," she groaned, so damn frustrated with his back-pedaling.

His hesitance to walk where she was leading. Like he couldn't trust it, like he was too much the gentleman to assume his presence tomorrow morning.

No wonder she couldn't imagine it, no wonder it scared her. "Castle, I want you there in the morning, but I don't know what that looks like, what the whole day looks like, what the week or my _self_ -"

"It looks just like it has," he said easily, stepping back into her and circling her wrists. He drew her hands up and kissed her knuckles, of both hands, smiling. "Except-"

"Sex," she murmured, flashing hot all through her.

"I'd have put it a little more delicately-"

She smirked. "You're the writer, not me."

"Make love," he said immediately, as if she'd issued him a challenge. His eyes caught hers with equal daring. "Share a bed. _Know_ each other, intimately." His touch dragged down to her elbows and then along her sides until she shivered. "It'll look just like it always has except - I can touch you. I'll have the memory of how I touched you the night before, the noises you made, the way you touched me in return."

If she couldn't catch her breath it was her own fault. "How do you know I make any noise at all?"

"You're much too passionate to hold it in," he said. And then his smile burned between them. "And I'm much too good at it for you _not_ to lose control."

Kate's body flamed, and _ached_. She pressed a hand to the scar at her sternum and glanced down the street. "Where's a damn cab when you need one?"

xxx

She brought him home.

All of his nerves were gone, evaporating like dew burned off in the full morning sun. All he wanted was right here, but whatever awkwardness or peril that had been attached had gone. Their dinner date, the normalcy of _them_ , had pushed them over those obstacles.

Kate didn't bother with the kitchen; she didn't go through the motions of coffee. She dropped her keys on a side table, stepped out of her shoes, took him by the hand to bring him with her.

He followed right into her bedroom.

She was already undressing, but she turned and went for his shirt, her dress gaping open, flimsy and loose around her shoulders. He pushed a hand inside the collar and skimmed warm skin, and she shivered and her eyes lifted to his, catching and holding.

He pushed the top of her dress down, and she lowered her arms to let it slide off, revealing a black bra with delicate lace edging, a tiny black bow in the middle, an embellishment to the puckered ridge of a scar.

His eyes homed in, and then his fingers traced the top edge between her breasts.

He was touching her breasts.

Castle blinked and inhaled a sharp breath, lifted his eyes to hers. She was cautiously standing before him as if awaiting judgment, and he stepped into her, palmed her hips to push the dress of the rest of the way. "You're beautiful."

The dress dropped. Her skin was at his hands. She was touching him back, little touches that unmanned him, made him step back to look at her.

"God," he said, prayer or penitent, no idea. Only that the sculpted lines of her legs met the flare of those perfectly canted hips, and that scrap of black burned like an arrow to where he wanted to be.

He stared at her, heavy-lidded and heart beating hard with wanting her, and he couldn't make his body work to take.

She reached in and delicately finished his buttons, fingers brushing against his chest so that his skin rippled.

"Kate," he dragged out, words deserting him.

"I know," she said. Forgiving him for it. Or maybe commiserating with him. How it struck her too.

At least she had the coordination to tug his shirt out of his pants and push it off his shoulders. At least she could run her hands up his sides and press her palms to his back and then their bodies together.

So blissfully together.

He groaned and caught her in his arms, crushing, and his mouth came down to find skin, beautiful hot skin, this smooth wonderful skin that moved and flowed and gave way at his incessant need. He dragged his jaw across her collarbone and sucked the flesh at her neck. She gasped and yanked his shirt where it was tangled at his wrist, in a hurry.

He untangled them both from the material, caught her ass in a hand and hauled her against him. She was breathing hard and taking nips of his jaw, his throat, his ear, and he fumbled at the stretchy black material of her panties.

Kate hooked a leg around his hip and ground against his belt, moaning.

"Oh, God," he gasped, painfully aroused, unable to stand it any longer. "Enough. Enough. Kate."

It was all the warning he could give. He sank his fingers between her legs and found her, wet, hot, and he rubbed until she was writhing, until the feeling of her body against his was torture itself, and he had to move.

He pushed her backwards and she dragged him by the belt, and then she was on her knees on her bed, ripping the belt through the belt loops, undoing his pants. She used her teeth, her fingers; she gave him entirely too potent looks with her eyes, gave him the husk of her voice as she demanded he strip.

He toed off his shoes, hooked a thumb in his sock, peeled it off. She was laughing, avoiding his jerking knee, shoving his pants down his hips and making it hard for him. In so many ways.

Castle sank down on the bed, stripping his pants and socks, but she was already climbing into his lap and doing an obscene roll against his stomach. He cursed and gripped her hips, felt her shoving him back, and he flopped to the mattress, staring up at her.

"Gonna go like that, huh?"

She grinned, lowered herself down to him only enough to open her mouth over his. Her tongue and the way she filled him, the slow strokes, the damp place low at his stomach where those panties were soaked-

She twisted to one side and dragged her hand down, pushed inside his boxers. Castle growled and bucked, unable to control it, and he rolled on top of her, forcing her to settle.

"Give me a fighting chance here, Beckett."

"Where's the fun in that?" she grinned.

He didn't even have the capability for a witty retort. All he had was the plunge of his mouth to hers, fighting for a dominance he wouldn't have long. She began pushing his boxers off, using her toes for the last of it, and he scissored a leg to help - and to pin her hips so he could see her.

Work on her for a little while.

She huffed back to the mattress, circled her fingers around his nipple. He did the same over her bra, waiting until she squirmed so he could call that one a win. He pressed his thumb under the wire of her bra, smoothed the skin where it creased, the weight of her breast against his knuckles.

"You're very good at this," she murmured, smile ticking up. Like she'd invented him.

She may as well have. He wanted her to have invented him. He leaned in and opened his mouth at her collarbone, trailed a hot breath down to the cup of her bra. Nudged his chin beneath the material until the bristle left from this morning's shave scraped that sensitive skin.

She let out a little breath that was almost a noise, like a woodland creature in a cartoon, and he made the mistake of grinning.

She felt that too and shoved on his shoulder, rocked her body into his to plant him back on the mattress. She spread her thighs over his hips and reached behind her to unfasten her bra.

It sagged and came loose and she tossed it away.

His hands lifted, cupped her breasts and immediately played with her nipples, rubbed harder when she twitched and leaned to one side. He raised himself up, caught her mouth for another kiss, kneading her flesh between them while her hips began to undulate, precursor to what they both wanted.

"That's more like it," he murmured, and sucked hard on her throat. She groaned and he traveled down, lifted her breasts to his mouth, took her inside.

Kate cried out, clutching him, and now the games of dominance were over, the push and pull. He wanted only more of those cries, and she was fiercely working a hand between them, finding him, torturing him with her grip.

She had to angle herself awkwardly on his lap and together they pulled her panties off. He caught them before she could toss them aside, watched her as he put them to his mouth, tasted.

She was molten at that. She dove in for a kiss, sucking on his tongue, rocking. He gripped her ass, found her wet between her legs, began a slow invasion with his fingers to make her wild. Ready.

Kate mauled his flesh, mangling him to her liking, shoulders and arms, his wrists and then back to his biceps. She ground against his hip bone and dug her heels into the bed, lifted up just enough for him.

Their hands collided, both moving to guide him inside. It was hot and erotic and somehow more intimate, their fingers brushing, tangling. She sank down and he nudged up, and they both groaned into open mouths, relishing the sensation of penetration.

There were things he should have asked before this. She should have insisted. But neither of them had, neither were stopping, and he would bear the consequences and call them, instead, fruit.

He was so damn _soaked_ in love of her.

Rick touched her and she shuddered around him. Her hand let go and fluttered up to his, their fingers laced. He sank deeper and she groaned, her forehead dropping, eyes too close to see or meet. Her palm kissed his; he brought their clasp to the scar between her breasts and used her knuckles to circle it.

And then her hips did the same move in response.

Castle groaned.

She lifted on her knees and sank back down again. Her body was hot, sweat beginning to make the space between them muggy and damp. She breathed his name at his mouth _Castle_ and it was erotic that way, his last name and her body sheathing him.

He lifted his hips and used his leverage to push higher. She whimpered and clung to his neck, kissed him messily.

It was slow, it was timed. She seemed to like prolonging the misery; he liked watching her. She had a way of twisting her hips that made his knee jerk and his teeth bite his tongue. To get her back, he brushed his fingers at her stomach. Just that fast she was coming apart.

He went still to behold her. Tracked her movements and the ecstasy on her face. Caught her jaw to tip her eyes to meet his, her feelings spilling out.

And then he laid them back on the bed and rolled on top of her. She widened her thighs and caressed his back, cupped his ass.

"Go," she insisted.

And then it was hard. Fast. She was _loud_ , and his knees ached, but his balls ached more. She was meeting him with thrusts that jostled the whole bed, and he was deeper every time. He had to prop himself up to keep from crushing her, and it gave her room to fondle, to do things with her fingers that finally made him explode.

And when he was collapsed on top of her and trying to struggle off to one side, she wound a leg around his and gave a lazy rock of her hips that nearly made him cry.

Her mouth collided with his. Her temple had sweat that ran behind her ear and onto his thumb. He found himself stroking that curve where the bowl of her ear met her skull, as if that was at all sexy or sweet.

The sensation of her skin under his thumb was intoxicating.

"Wake me when you're ready again," she mumbled at his neck. "Or if you have to leave."

"I'll be here," he promised softly, more breath than words. "I will be here - middle of the night and morning too. And every day, every week, every self-"

She silenced him with her fingers to his mouth. "I don't need sex-haze promises."

He caught her hand and pressed it to his chest. Above his heart. "They're not," he said, fighting against the heavy saturation of satiation. She needed this; he needed her to believe this. "It's not just the sex talking-"

" _Great_ sex," she murmured, one eye cracking open.

He grinned, kissed under that eye. "Most definitely. But I want you to know, tomorrow morning, next week - Kate, you will never have to wonder."

Both of her eyes opened. Her fingers unfurled in his hand, touched his chin. Her leg tightened at his thigh, pulled them closer, more intimate.

"I don't wonder anymore, Rick." His name like that, from such a mouth made hazy by kissing, set his heart to pounding. She trailed her finger down his throat and leaned in, gave him a light kiss. "Because now I know." When she pulled back, she didn't go far. Her nose nudged his, her lashes along his cheek. "Don't you know too? How much I'm in love with you."

xxx


End file.
